Tea isn’t just about drinking…it’s an adventure!

Off With Their Heads – Tea Poetry

I beheaded our 15-year-old
organic roses,
chopping off old doddering faded heads
along with matronly full blossoms,
saucy nubile blooms,
and just-split-lip sepals revealing babysoft
reds and pinks underneath.
I lovingly tore
their petals from their peduncles
and scattered them on drying screens,
dreaming of steaming
cups of black tea
steeped with roses.

Oh Queen of Roses, you write a energetic poem that settles down to a relaxing cup of tea. Ahhhhh, soothing. Two aromas that are the natural perfume to gentle my life when it feels too whirlwind – roses and tea.

I enjoyed the tension you created–and therefore the humor–between your “violent” way of proceeding with the beheadings and the delicate object of your violence and, ultimately its gift to you of peace–“cups of black tea steeped in roses.”

And for the record, I have never seen the word “peduncle,” about which the Oxford English Dictionary has now informed me: “1. Bot. The stalk of a flower or fruit, or of a cluster of flowers or fruits; (now) spec. the main stalk or primary axis of an inflorescence. Also: a stalk bearing a fungal fructification (rare).”

Thank you for sharing your work, Karen. And I hope that you are well and happy in the silver tower where you world.